The field of the disclosure relates generally to apparatus and methods for making beverages from ground ingredients, and more particularly for brewing hot beverages from ground ingredients.
Beverage brewing appliances, such as coffee makers, are typically somewhat automated and come in many different types, such as automatic drip machines, which use gravity to drip hot water through coffee grounds, and automatic single-serve pod brewers, which use pressurized hot water pumped into a sealed brew chamber. While these coffee makers are convenient, some individuals prefer a more manual or otherwise user-oriented experience when brewing beverages such as coffee.
To this end, one popular method among coffee connoisseurs and baristas is to use what is referred to as the pour-over technique when making coffee. The pour-over technique allows one to manually prepare customized beverages in smaller portions, which is believed to better extract the flavors from the brew ingredients. In addition, the pour-over technique can reduce possible waste from preparing a customized beverage in larger portions. Furthermore, because the pour-over technique is manual, the consumer can experience (e.g., participate in, or at least view) the entire brewing process, thus obtaining a user experience not available with a typical automated brewing appliance.
In the pour-over technique, hot water is slowly poured, often in a generally swirling pattern, into a cone shaped filter that contains coffee grounds and is held or otherwise retained above a cup or carafe. The hot water wets the coffee grounds in the filter and drips through the filter into the carafe or cup. One drawback of this conventional pour-over technique is that it is entirely manual, and thus can result in inconsistent brewing. Additionally, it takes considerably more time than brewing with conventional automated brewers.
There is a need, therefore, for automating the pour-over brewing process to provide improved efficiency and consistency of single-serve customized beverage recipes while simultaneously providing the desired user experience associated with the pour-over brewing process.